For B2B companies, advertising a product or service to businesses through search engines is the perfect way to generate leads. Issues arise, however, when a company finds themselves unknowingly targeting irrelevant users thanks to poor keyword selection, ad copy and landing pages. In order to find success in the B2B paid search space, it’s essential to understand how to target the correct users to make sure lead generation is being optimized.

This post will go over 5 paid search tips that need to be considered when running a B2B lead generation campaign.

Create a Keyword List Targeted Towards Businesses

The first tip when it comes to improving B2B PPC lead generation revolves around selecting keywords and understanding who will be searching for them. Ultimately, the goal for B2B companies is to make sure only decision makers within a business are seeing their ad. In order to do this, advertisers need to make sure they completely understand the nature of the keyword they are bidding on.

For example, let’s say a company who is selling large-scale printing services to businesses bids on the keyword “printing services.” While that keyword accurately describes their business, individuals who may be looking to print out a few photos for a party may be searching for that as well. This leads to irrelevant clicks and wasted money.

In order to combat this, an advertiser will either need to add negative keywords, or use longer tail keywords, such as “business printing services,” instead.

Write Ad Copy Focusing on Businesses

Sometimes, there are situations where a specific keyword needs to be bid on, despite it potentially bringing in some individual users. If this is the case, it is necessary for the ad copy to reflect exactly who the target audience for their service is.

When creating ad copy, make sure that it explains the solution or product is for businesses only. Using the printing example above, the headline 1 & 2 for the ad should say something like: “Business Printing Services – High-Quality Custom Printing”.

While doing this may decrease the click through rate (as irrelevant users will no longer click), it will ultimately help lower wasted spend and improve lead totals.

Create the Landing Page & Choose the Right Call-to-Action

Now that the correct user has made it to a company’s landing page, it is essential that they find what they are looking for and are able to easily request more information. While creating a successful B2B landing page can be an entirely separate post of its own, here are a few tips to keep in mind:

Have a clear call-to-action on the page

Make sure the lead generation form is visible immediately upon entering

Only include necessary form fields to keep the length short

Include a brief summary of the company and what is being offered

When choosing the call to action on a landing page, it’s important to keep a few items in mind. If a company plans on offering a piece of collateral, such as a white paper, they will most likely see more leads come in. But remember, these users tend to be in early stages of purchasing and will take longer to convert to a sale.

On the other hand, if the call to action is simply “Learn More” or “Request More Information”, fewer leads are likely to come, but these users will tend to be further along the decision-making process and might be ready to make a purchase soon.

Ultimately, there is no correct answer when it comes to the call-to-action, and it’s entirely up to what the company is looking for in a lead.

Show Ads During Business Hours

Another factor to keep in mind is the time of day a user will be searching for a B2B company’s product. Unlike B2C, where users are searching for products at all hours of the day, B2B customers have a narrower time frame. B2B leads generally come in during normal business hours, so it is important that ads are only being shown during this time frame.

Making sure the time of day settings are appropriate to a business’s schedule is essential to making sure lead generation is being optimized.

Track Leads Through the Funnel

While getting leads is essential to any B2B PPC effort, it’s also important to look beyond the initial conversion and follow the user down the funnel. Unlike B2C, most B2B sales are not always made within a day. It can take weeks or months to make a sale, which is why it’s important that companies focus on not just leads, but leads that bring in sales.

It’s necessary for a company to make sure they are tracking leads by keywords on their back end. By doing this, advertisers can look at the data a whole new way. Instead of optimizing a campaign for leads, advertisers can focus spend on keywords that ultimately lead to a sale down the road, and move away from ones that go unqualified.

Final Thoughts

Whether it’s through ad copy, keywords, the landing page or time settings, there are important details to keep in mind when creating a paid search campaign for a B2B company versus a B2C one. Lead generation in the B2B space requires a deep understanding of the target audience that needs to be captured.

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